Robert Lowell Movies

Though the direction of Hellbound is sometimes erroneously credited to editor Michael J. Duthie, the actual director was Aaron Norris, brother of the film's star, Chuck Norris. The story begins with the ritualistic murder of a Chicago rabbi. Detectives Shatter (Norris) and Jackson (Calvin Levels) are assigned to the case, and are compelled to follow the trail of evidence all the way to Israel (where the film was lensed in its entirety...even the Chicago sequences). Once in the Holy Land, Shatter and Jackson discover that the murderer is a centuries-old supernatural entity, a malevolent creature determined to "cleanse" the world. The premise is workable and Norris is in fine form, but the dialogue in Hellbound is too Ed Wood Jr.-esque. (Wait until you hear that conversation about a missing heart!) Filmed in 1992, Hellbound went directly to video in 1994. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Director Peter Whitehead is in nearly every scene of this egocentric feature in which he calls for violence as a means to destroy the existing establishment and start a new society. His six-week filming spree in New York gave way to his idea about a social revolution. The student riots at Columbia and the race riots in Newark, NJ, serve as a background for his ill-conceived solution to society's problems. He is shown arguing with his American girlfriend and involved in further pompous postulations that decry the very system that allows him to make this tripe. Music by the Nice is a refreshing change to this plodding and self-centered diatribe. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

A haunting work of stark confessionalism disguised as a taut noir thriller, In a Lonely Place -- Nicholas Ray's bleak, desperate tale of fear and self-loathing in Hollywood -- remains one of the filmmaker's greatest and most deeply resonant features. It stars Humphrey Bogart as Dixon Steele, a fading screenwriter suffering from creative burnout; hired to adapt a best-selling novel, instead of reading the book itself he asks the hat-check girl (Martha Stewart) at his favorite nightclub to simply tell him the plot. The morning after, the girl is found brutally murdered, and Steele is the police's prime suspect; however, the would-be starlet across the way, Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame), provides him with a solid alibi, and they soon begin a romance in spite of Gray's lingering concerns that the troubled, violent Steele might just be a killer after all. During production, Ray's real-life marriage to co-star Grahame began to crumble, and his own vulnerability and disillusionment clearly inform the picture; the brooding, bitter Steele -- a role ideally suited to Bogart's wounded romanticism -- is plainly a doppelganger for Ray himself (the site of his first Hollywood apartment is even employed as the set for Steele's home), and the film's unflinching examination of the character's disintegration makes for uniquely compelling viewing. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a California artist abandons his work to become a New York prizefighter after he falls in love with a married nightclub singer. Her husband was a fighter, but suffered a crippling accident in the ring and was unable to fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming the world champion. The husband decides to live out his dream through the artist and begins tutoring him. Things go well until the hubby discovers that the artist has been sleeping with his wife. He then begins giving the artist bad advice so he will get creamed in the ring. Fortunately for the artist, he wins the Big Fight. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The most controversial "road show" film of the 1940s, this was actually a rather innocent little morality play about a teenage girl (June Carlson) who gets in the "family way" during her very first date. The reason, of course, is that Mom (ois Austin) and Dad (George Eldredge) failed to tell their little darling about the birds and the bees. The father of the expected child (Hardie Albright) is killed before he can make the girl an honest woman, but there is the obligatory happy conclusion with the parents appearing suitably repentant. Nothing to get too excited about -- even in the mid 1940s -- Mom and Dad became a cause celebre courtesy of its producer, crafty promoter Kroger Babb, whose common-law wife Mildred Horn had provided the script. Babb added a live hygienic lecturer, the estimable Elliott Forbes, and inaugurated segregated screenings, not between black and whites, but a separation of the sexes. Women and teenage girls were admitted to the two early showings, while their menfolk had to wait until the late show, naturally getting more and more excited as time went slowly by. The Legion of Decency, a Roman Catholic organization, helped Babb no end by banning the film, and Mom and Dad went on to make money for the promoter well into the '50s. Another legendary "sleaze merchant," David Friedman, took over the film in the '60s, when it was finally allowed to be shown in the puritan city of Chicago. At one point, as Friedman recalled, the film played at 10 Chicago theatres simultaneously, still advertized as featuring a live lecture by the redoubtable "Elliott Forbes." No one apparently questioned how this man could be in 10 places at the same time! The actual filming of Mom and Dad had taken place at the Monogram studios in Hollywood on a one week shooting schedule courtesy of co-producer J.S. Jossey, a Mid-Western exchange man. Incredibly, the film proved to be the fourth highest grosser of the '40s behind three Disney cartoons. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Sometimes dismissed as a derivation of Samuel Goldwyn's The Best Years of Our Lives, RKO Radio's superb Till the End of Time was actually based on Niven Busch's novel They Dream of Home, and was completed and released several months before the Goldwyn film. The story concentrates on three ex-marines: Cliff Harper (Guy Madison), Bill Tabeshaw (Robert Mitchum) and Perry Kincheloe (Bill Williams). Harper falls in love with emotionally distraught war widow Pat Ruscomb (Dorothy McGuire); Tabeshaw endures one disappointment after another as he tries to buy his own ranch; and Kincheloe, rendered legless by the war, intends to spend the rest of his life wallowing in self-pity. All three men find a new lease on life when they engage in a cathartic barroom brawl against a bigoted group of self-styled patriots led by hate-spouting Ray Teal (forever typecast as rabid racists during the postwar years). It was this climactic scene, which remains the most memorable aspect of Till the End of Time (outside of its Chopin-inspired theme song) that caused a lot of headaches for producer Dore Schary, screenwriter Allen Rivkin and director Edward Dmytryk during the House Unamerican Activities hearings a few years later: what was accepted as pro-American in 1946 would soon be labelled "Pinko" by the anti-Red zealots. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

I Accuse My Parents was one of PRC's entries in the "wartime juvenile delinquent drama" sweepstakes, as exemplified by such earlier films as RKO's Youth Runs Wild and Monogram's Where are Your Children? This time around, it's high schooler James Wilson (Robert Lowell) who suffers from lack of parental supervision. As James' parents (John Miljan, Vivienne Osborne) blithely pursue their social life, the boy gets mixed up with the standard bad crowd, who smoke, drink, gamble, and drive fast cars. Inevitably hauled into juvenile court, James blames his parents for his present sorry state-whereupon the Judge (Edward Earle), anticipating the "victim of environment" mindset of the 1980s and 1990s, likewise reprimands Mr. and Mrs. Wilson for their neglect. Billed first, Mary Beth Hughes has little to do in her brief scenes as a good-time girl. I Accuse My Parents was recently given a well-deserved going-over by TV's Mystery Science Theater 3000. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on Norman Corwin's satirical radio play My Client Curley, Once Upon a Time is an engaging bit of whimsy, completely dominated by the personality of star Cary Grant. It all begins when fly-by-night Broadway producer Jerry Flynn (Grant) learns of a trained caterpillar (!) that dances to the tune of "Yes, Sir, That's My Baby." In short order, Jerry has promoted Curly the Caterpillar to international stardom-and in the process he alienates both Pinky Thompson (Ted Donaldson), the impressionable 9-year-old who owns Curley, and Pinky's attractive older sister Jeanne (Janet Blair). Eventually, Flynn comes to his senses and regains his essential decency-though it's too late to continue capitalizing on Curley, who has turned into a non-dancing butterfly! Full of delightful contemporary references and "cameo appearances" by such celebrities as producer Walt Disney and radio commentator Gabriel Heatter (both played by uncredited impressionists), Once Upon a Time proved an agreeable diversion for wartime audiences. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Though its purely propagandastic aspects are never far from surface, Destination Tokyo must rank as one of the most intelligent and objective of wartime thrillers. Cary Grant is a tower of strength as Captain Cassidy, skipper of an American submarine bound for Tokyo harbor. Its mission: to allow a Navy meterologist to survey Japanese weather conditions, in preparation for a major Allied assault. Many of the individual incidents in Delmar Daves' script are based on fact, notably an episode in which a pharmacist's mate is called upon to perform an emergency appendectomy. Admittedly, some of the secondary characters are WWII stereotypes, but they're never played that way. Particularly good isDane Clark, in his first important screen role; also registering well as a radio man is John Forsythe, in his first screen role ever. From the sub's embarkation in San Francisco to its climactic retreat from Japan, there's not a single solitary dull moment in the 135 minutes of Destination Tokyo. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide